Due North

Due North is a collection of travel observations, reflections, and snapshots across colors, cultures, and continents by award-winning travel writer and photographer Lola Akinmade Åkerström. EXCERPT: I know what's coming. I'd gone through this drill dozens of times. As many times as each of those vibrant and colorful visas in my little green book, my Nigerian passport. Even before the immigration officer pulls me aside, I instinctively pull myself aside. He glosses over my visa. A visa I've spent hundreds of dollars acquiring. He finds his government's issued permission, but curiosity gets the better of him. He thumbs through the rest, looking through the two green passports stapled together because the visas had outnumbered the pages. "Why all these visas?" he asks. This scene was repeated in airport after airport across several continents. The more visa stamps in my passport, the more my motives for travel were deeply questioned. Why was I traveling?